


The Plight of Mother Jeanne

by Miss M (missm)



Series: The Road from Faverolles [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Backstory, Family, Gen, POV Minor Character, Poverty, Siblings, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missm/pseuds/Miss%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Certain concerns are only of relevance to people who have a choice, and Jeanne Valjean had none.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Plight of Mother Jeanne

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a kinkmeme prompt: "He doesn't know it but this is the last time Valjean will ever see his sister." This insisted on being from her POV, though.
> 
> I'm assuming Jeanne Valjean shares her brother's surname, as I haven't seen any evidence of the opposite (and Hugo does refer to the seven children as "the Valjean children"). I'm also assuming that bark bread may have been used as famine food in France, but I don't know if that is the case at all, though I don't think it's impossible.

On a freezing Sunday in December 1795, Jeanne Valjean, aged thirty-four and mother of seven, spent the afternoon grinding bark into dust with the intent of adding it to the flour and thus make the latter last longer. The bread would be hard and the taste bitter, and while it would fill the children's empty stomachs it would not properly nourish their bodies, but concerns like these are only of relevance to people who have a choice, and Jeanne Valjean had none. Such is the plight of the poor.

The table where she was seated was a rough, coarse thing, fabricated years ago by her deceased husband Jacques. Empty jars and platters littered one end of it. Through the small window, light from the setting sun, so cold in winter, shone upon the small room, one of two in the cottage. A door next to the fireplace let into the small chamber, from which now and then there could be heard a faint coughing. Every time this happened, Jeanne Valjean's hands would stop their movements; her eyes would grow attentive and pained; then, as the sound died away, she would lower her eyes and resume her work, her face seeming to close in upon itself.

Most of the children were huddled together next to the fireplace. They had fuel for another couple of weeks, at least; her brother Jean had cut down the birches next to the cottage last spring, making stacks of firewood they all had hoped would last them through the winter. Then October had been harder than usual, the cold wind forcing its way through the walls of the cottage. November had been terrible, December merciless. Soon it would be Christmas, and soon the last of the firewood would be gone. She still had a few sous saved for the purpose of providing her family with a Christmas dinner. Soon those sous would be gone as well.

Presently there were sounds coming from outside, of someone stopping on the other side of the door, kicking their feet against the wall to shake off snow. The children raised their heads in curiosity and hope. Jeanne Valjean did not look up from her work, not until the door opened and her brother entered, placing his shotgun against the wall next to the door. His cheeks were red with cold, his eyes dull. "Nothing," he said before she could ask.

At this, her hands fell to her lap, suddenly listless. "Nothing? Nothing at all?"

He did not answer, only went to the fireplace and sat down, his shoulders slumped in fatigue. The children moved to make room for him.

"You have been out since morning," Jeanne Valjean said, desperation and hunger clawing at her belly. "Do you mean to tell me you didn't catch sight of a single rabbit?"

Again, he did not answer, simply sat there, slowly rubbing his hands together to warm them. He had not removed his coat or cap. Snow still clung to his boots, melting into pools by his feet.

There was again the faint coughing from the chamber. She raised her head towards it, as did Jean. Then their eyes met. The hopelessness in his gaze, which she instinctively felt to mirror her own, enraged her.

"I don't believe it," she spat. "A whole day in the woods, and you come home with nothing? You, who eat enough for three?" The latter was not, in fact, true. She knew this and her guilt made her angrier still. "It's Sunday. Don't tell me the gamekeepers were about."

"They're always about." His voice was gruff but quiet, devoid of any discernible emotion. Were it not for the way he stared at his hands, his neck bowed, one could almost have thought him indifferent. Jeanne Valjean put down the bark and the mortar she had been using, and got to her feet.

"You must go to the village," she said, crossing the floor to stand in front of him. At this he raised his head again. The children's eyes moved between them nervously. "Surely there must be something..."

"There's no work to be had on Sundays," he said miserably. "You know that."

"Go anyway." When the bark had been ground, she would set the dough. It would need the whole night to leaven. Tomorrow morning, she would make the bread. They would not have food until then.

"Jean," she said, her voice low. "There must be something." She glanced towards the chamber, trying to do so without the children noticing. "We can't wait."

He glanced towards the chamber in turn. The dull melancholy seemed to lift from his face for a moment, despair taking its place. She knew what he was thinking: they needed food, the sick child in the chamber most of all. Bark bread would keep starvation at bay for a while, but not the sickness. "Go," she pleaded.

Brother and sister looked at each other for a long second. Then he nodded, resigned, and got to his feet. 

Had she known it would be the last time they saw each other, she might have offered him a kind word, a gentle caress, a reassurance that she bore him no ill will. As it was, she followed him to the door in silence, bolting it behind him as he left so that it would not be thrown open by a sudden gale.

When he did not return that night, she was furious. When he did not come home the next morning either, her anger started to give way to worry. When she finally made it into the village and learned that Jean Valjean was arrested -- caught, the gossip said, stealing a loaf of bread -- the feeling that immediately gripped her was that of desperation.

Had she been in a position to afford such luxuries, she would have grieved for her brother. Her situation left no room for this. Less than two weeks until Christmas, they were running out of firewood, and her child was dying.


End file.
